sentenceinitial

Sentenceinitial is a term used in typography and linguistics to denote the first character or word of a sentence. It commonly refers to the convention of capitalizing the initial letter to mark the beginning of a new sentence and to aid readability. The exact terminology varies; sentence-initial elements may be described as initial capitals, sentence starters, or simply the sentence initial.

In orthography, sentenceinitial capitalization is widespread but not universal. English, German, Spanish, and many other languages typically begin sentences with an uppercase letter. Languages with no case distinctions, such as Chinese or Japanese, signal the sentence start with punctuation, spacing, or context rather than capitalization. Exceptions arise: after certain abbreviations, within quoted dialogue, or in stylized text where all caps is used for emphasis.

Outside traditional writing, sentenceinitial is also relevant in computational contexts. In text processing and natural language processing, algorithms identify the sentence initial to segment text, normalize capitalization, or apply styling rules. In corpus annotation, marking the sentence initial helps analyze sentence boundaries and capitalization patterns across languages and genres.

In typography, the term is sometimes connected to initial-letter treatments at the start of a paragraph or sentence, such as drop caps or decorative initials, though those are stylistic devices rather than the grammatical concept of sentenceinitial.

See also: capitalization, sentence punctuation, drop cap, initial capital.